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Tanner Flores murder trial: The four days leading up to Ashley Doolittle's death

By Sam Lounsberry

Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:
10/04/2017 08:23:20 AM MDT

Tanner Flores talks with his defense attorney Janet Laughon after witness testimonies at the Larimer County Justice Center on Monday. Flores is on trial for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, 18-year-old Ashley Doolittle, in June 2016. (Austin Humphreys / The Coloradoan)

Ashley Doolittle and Tanner Flores (Larimer County Sheriff's Office)

FORT COLLINS — What was he thinking?

That is the question a jury is currently trying to answer as a murder trial of Berthoud teen Tanner Flores comes to a close, with the verdict still looming. A jury was dismissed for the evening after deliberating for four hours Tuesday and will resume its duty to return a decision Wednesday.

Did he have a plan? Was the killing on purpose? Or did he lose control as he became possessed by emotion? Can a suicidal man be in a culpable mental state? Perhaps those are the more specific questions the jury is contemplating.

The ultimate choice for the jury is between first-degree murder and second-degree murder, the latter of which Flores' own defense attorneys have stated there is evidence to support a conviction. His public defenders Daniel Jasinski and Janet Laughon have stopped short of conceding Flores planned to kill his former girlfriend Ashley Doolittle on June 9, 2016, instead contending he was not in a culpable mental state and cannot recall his thoughts while shooting Doolittle, and therefore did not deliberate upon the homicidal act, a requirement for a first-degree murder conviction.

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Through the testimony of more than a dozen witnesses, a picture has developed of the defendant's state of mind, his whereabouts and his actions in the four days prior to the slaying inside his truck on a southern Larimer County Road, and the jury must decide whether Flores acted intentionally when he shot her, or was so overcome by confusion and depression that he was incapable of stopping himself from pulling the trigger.

Prosecutors have narrowed in on Flores' activity starting June 5, 2016, four days before Doolittle ended up with three bullet wounds in her head, and her lifeless body in Flores' truck.

Doolittle, the Boulder County Fair and Rodeo Lady-in-Waiting with plans to study at Colorado State University starting in the fall, had yet to deposit her high school graduation money she had just received after walking across the stage on Max Marr Field at Berthoud High School a few days earlier.

Here is an in-depth, step-by-step account of everything known about Flores and Doolittle

Sunday, June, 5, 2016

That day, June 5, 2016, is when prosecutors with the 8th Judicial District Attorneys Office have argued circumstances began to culminate that motivated Flores to plan killing Doolittle, a day Flores spent alongside Doolittle on a hike to Gem Lake in Estes Park.

The relationship between Flores and Doolittle had begun more than a year before that hike, on a Valentine's Day, Feb. 14, 2015, according to Flores' own testimony Monday. And even while on that hike in June last year, nothing dramatic between the two occurred.

Ashley Doolittle, crowned posthumously as Boulder County Fair queen for this year's rodeo, will be remembered with a fundraiser for programs to prevent teen dating violence. She was killed in June 2016 by a former boyfriend. (Special to the Reporter-Herald)

Just a few hours later, though, Doolittle tried to distance herself from Flores. Doolittle and Flores met with friends later that Sunday night after their hike, at Sundance Steakhouse and Saloon in east Fort Collins. Flores, a Berthoud High School dropout whose mechanical skills were in demand by several potential employers, felt the Doolittle was ignoring him at Sundance.

Flores wanted Doolittle's attention at the Sundance. He gained it by approaching her as she headed for the ladies' room at the saloon with her friend Amber Wright. Wright testified that Flores grabbed Doolittle's arm, spun her around and said something in her ear. Doolittle told Flores to wait outside the bathroom, where he sat crying on a bench. A few minutes passed, then Wright said she exited the bathroom after talking with Doolittle, and instructed Flores to wait outside the saloon in his truck because Doolittle needed some space.

Defense Attorney Daniel Jasinski shows Tanner Flores a piece of evidence as he testifies during his trial at the Larimer County Justice Center on Monday. Flores is on trial for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, 18-year-old Ashley Doolittle, in June 2016. (Austin Humphreys / The Coloradoan)

He did as she asked and stayed in his truck in the parking lot for more than an hour until Doolittle left Sundance with Wright. He never got the chance to speak with Doolittle, though. A phone call ensued, and Flores testified that Doolittle broke up with him over the phone.

Saddened by what had transpired — his relationship with Doolittle ending in a manner that seemed sudden to him — Flores asked his friend Bryson Hudson with whom he had come to the Sundance with to leave him alone, Hudson said under oath, and Flores returned home.

Flores knew he would have another chance to smooth things over with Doolittle, though.

Previously during their relationship, Flores testified, the couple established a rule that if one party were to break it off, both would still meet the next day to discuss the reasons for the breakup.

That is exactly what happened, according to Flores.

Monday, June 6, 2016

On Monday, June 6, 2016, Flores said he met with Doolittle, and after a conversation he believed they were still together.

"She talked about how she still wanted to get married and get a house together, and have kids," Flores said from the witness stand. "We had gotten back together. And I think it was clear to her, too, that we were back together."

Flores' parents, Shawn and Darla Flores, married when they were 19 and 17, respectively, Shawn Flores said in his testimony. Doolittle's parents, Jeff Doolittle and Ann Marie Doolittle, were no longer married prior to their daughter's death.

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Confusion resulted in Tanner Flores again the next day, though, when on Tuesday night Ashley Doolittle returned to the Sundance with her friend Haydin Wareheim, a high school classmate of Doolittle's who said she wanted to rekindle her friendship with Doolittle.

This time, however, Doolittle told Flores not to come to the Sundance, and that if he did, she would break up with him again.

"If your partner told you not to come with them or they would leave you, wouldn't that arouse suspicion in your mind?" Daniel Jasinski, Flores' attorney, asked the jury in his closing argument.

Although Flores obliged Doolittle's request and refrained from heading back to the Sundance — likely stopped by the fact he had locked his keys in his truck and was forced to use a screwdriver to break in the back window of the vehicle to retrieve them — his suspicion tempted him to snoop through Doolittle's phone when he once again met up with her the next day.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Doolittle agreed to meet with Flores to help him haul scrap metal to a junk yard on Wednesday, June 8, 2016. Once the teenagers returned a trailer they used for the project to Flores' grandfather, Doolittle reportedly hopped in the driver's seat of Flores' truck, he said. While she was driving, Flores said he grabbed her cell phone and secretly read through text messages, attempting to understand why it was so important to Doolittle that he avoided the Sundance while she was there the night before.

What he saw alarmed him.

Doolittle had been communicating with a man named Tory Johnson, who had apparently been flirting with Doolittle.

"He had been calling her 'hot' and 'sexy,'" Flores said of Johnson's messages to Doolittle.

He made a phone call to confront Johnson, who advised Flores that Doolittle had said she was not in a relationship, and that Flores should address Jarod Breitstine as well, a Berthoud man with whom Doolittle was also speaking.

Breitstine had already spent a year studying at Montana State University by June 2016 after graduating high school a year ahead of Doolittle, and had returned to Colorado for the summer. Last week, Breitstine testified as a witness called by the prosecution that he remembered spending time with Doolittle at Sundance, as well as for about three hours that Wednesday night, June 8, the night before she was killed.

Soon after Flores confronted Johnson about pursuing Doolittle, she caught wind of Flores' concern about her relationships with other men, and placed another phone call to Flores to break up with him.

He did not take the breakup well, as shown by the text messages he sent in the wake of Doolittle's phone call.

"You probably just cheated on me," Flores said in those texts, according to the testimony provided with cell phone records obtained in the murder investigation. "I hope you realize what you threw away. I gave you everything and spent so much money on you. You were too busy trying to (expletive) Tory and Jarod behind my back. You are nothing near loyal. I'm going to do something stupid now. Bye."

In her responses to his messages, Doolittle remained adamant she had never betrayed his trust .

"I never cheated on you. I never did anything with anyone else while we were together. Our relationship has been over for a long time. I wanted to be friends but that isn't possible," Doolittle wrote.

Later that Wednesday afternoon, Flores returned to Doolittle's residence to retrieve jewelry he had bought her and his jackets she had borrowed. He even mentioned Doolittle's pursuits of relationships with other men to her mother, Ann Marie Doolittle.

After leaving with the jewelry and clothing, Flores later met up with his friend Dallas Weinzirl at Hay's Market in Berthoud. The two rode around together in Weinzirl's truck before heading to Weinzirl's house, where the two drank a beer together, Weinzirl testified.

"He told me him and Ashley had been fighting. He was upset about it, not angry, but sad," Weinzirl said. "He felt like things were falling apart, she was talking to other guys. We didn't get into much detail about it."

At the same time Flores was with Weinzirl, he was constantly texting Doolittle, pleading with his former girlfriend to meet him the next day at Lon Hagler Reservoir. Doolittle had gone to Estes Park and then to dinner in Longmont with Wright, whom Flores was also texting about the status of his relationship with Doolittle, per Wright's testimony.

Weinzirl later hosted a bonfire at his house with Flores, which Wright attended without Doolittle. Under oath, Wright said she spoke with Flores privately, and he told her he was going to kill himself.

During their conversation, Flores made an advance toward Wright.

"He put his hand in my pocket. He began to hold my hips," Wright said of Flores. "He said if he couldn't be with (Doolittle) the only other person he could see himself with was me. I said we both knew that wasn't going to happen."

Flores appeared normal when he returned from his conversation with Wright around 10:15 p.m., said Weinzirl.

"He seemed fine, normal, quiet. He seemed fine to me. Tanner talked about seeing Ashley the next day. He said they were going to meet up and talk about things," Weinzirl said.

Meanwhile, Doolittle was with Breitstine at his house, according to Breitstine's testimony.

"I was never really sure what was going on (between Doolittle and Flores), but she was telling me she was done with him," Breitstine said. "There was constant flirting and teasing (between me and Doolittle) but nothing developed out of it."

Breitstine testified he had disliked Flores for months prior to Doolittle's death, and even sent Flores messages via social media calling him "not a real man," and a "piece of (expletive)."

"I thought he was immature. I didn't like how he treated Ashley when they were together," Breitstine said.

Around 9 p.m. that Wednesday night, Flores sent a text message to Wright that said, "She's with Jarod or someone, I know she is."

Thursday, June 9, 2016

The following day, Thursday, June 9, 2016, Flores asked Doolittle via text message if she could still meet at Lon Hagler Reservoir, and Doolittle informed him she had to go to Denver first, canceling their plans to meet that morning. While Doolittle ran errands, Flores took a revolver belonging to his father and shot at least one round in the area below Carter Lake at no particular target, an activity Flores described as stress relief, and to take his mind off his turbulent and seemingly terminated relationship with Doolittle.

Although Flores contends he took much more ammunition and fired at least seven shots that morning, prosecutors argued he only shot once just to make sure the gun could fire, as he was already planning to kill Doolittle later that day. Investigators with the Larimer County Sheriff's Office were unable to recover any spent shell casings in the area where Flores described his shooting took place.

Meanwhile, his texting to Doolittle continued. "We are going to meet up tonight. I don't care when, but we are okay," he wrote to her around 7:45 a.m.

At noon, he texted Doolittle, "I miss you," to which she replied, "Stop."

Flores was likely spotted driving his white pickup truck on Larimer County Road 21 sometime before noon that day by Berthoud resident Jordan Ennis, who was on County Road 14 on his way to Loveland with his father when he saw Flores make a U-turn in the intersection and head back north on County Road 21 for about a mile before making another U-turn to return southbound on the road.

Within four hours, per Flores' admissions to the jury, Doolittle would be shot in her head multiple times while riding in the passenger seat of his truck along that same road in a spot Flores himself put between the U-turns Ennis reportedly saw him make. Prosecutors have said Flores was scouting out the area while making those U-turns, and purposely chose that location to shoot Doolittle because it is isolated and hearing the sounds of gunfire was a normal occurrence for the rural residents nearby.

At some point before meeting with Doolittle, Flores also fueled his truck at a Berthoud gas station. Prosecutors suggested that this was in preparation to flee across the state to his deceased great-grandfather's property in Collbran, where he drove Doolittle's body. Flores also saw his grandmother at his house in Berthoud at some point that Thursday, June 9, 2016.

Prosecutors contend Flores arrived to his house after what they allege was a so-called practice shooting, and he had a chance to return the gun if he truly didn't want to harm Doolittle with it, but Flores said he recalls seeing his grandmother prior to leaving for the day, and that he never returned home after shooting by himself.

Eventually, after placing a call and setting plans to see his friend Noah Ternes later in the evening, Flores met up with Doolittle. He said he picked her up from a tire shop in Loveland, drove her to a credit union where she made a transaction, and then returned her to the tire shop, from where Flores followed Doolittle to Lon Hagler Reservoir.

After reaching Lon Hagler, Flores asked Doolittle to get into his truck and head further west to Carter Lake, which his defense attorneys said she did willingly. Prosecutors theorized she could have been kidnapped, as Flores had the weapon in his possession at that point.

At Carter Lake, Flores said, he failed to persuade Doolittle to remain romantically involved for the time being, but still expressed there was a chance she would marry him later in life.

"She wanted to go experience relationships with other people before getting married," Flores said.

Although Doolittle reportedly exited Flores' truck and threatened to walk back to her car from Carter Lake at one point during their talk, she still ended up in his vehicle, and Flores said he began driving back toward her car at Lon Hagler. On the way to her car, Flores said he asked her for a final kiss, which she gave him.

Shortly afterward, Flores said, he reached into the back seat of his truck for the revolver, aimed at Doolittle's head and shot her.

"She just kind of glared at me and turned away, so I grabbed the gun and shot her," Flores told Mesa County Sheriff's Office investigators during an interview. "She started twitching and freaking out, so I shot her again. I thought it would be an instant thing."

He said he wished he would have tried to kill himself with the gun when asked by an investigator why he aimed it at Doolittle instead of himself. Under cross-examination of District Attorney Cliff Riedel, Flores said he was unable to convey his thoughts at the time of the shooting.

"It all just happened really fast. There was no thought to it," Flores said. "It's hard to explain what was happening. My body was acting faster than my brain could understand what's happening."

In his closing argument, Riedel told the jury Flores was hoping he could kill Doolittle with a single shot and himself with another, but "lost his nerve" to commit suicide when he saw that Doolittle had at least initially survived the first gunshot. A medical examiner with the county coroner's office discovered three gunshot wounds to Doolittle's head.

Flores went on to say he decided to head to his deceased great-grandfather's house in Collbran because he didn't know what else to do. He even stopped for gas with Doolittle's body still in his passenger seat, he said.

When he arrived in Collbran, he said he took Doolittle's body inside the house, stripped her clothes off to wash them and later put them back on, cleaned blood off her body, and fell asleep watching cartoons on television.

"It was a final act of caring," Jasinski said of his client's decision to clean the victim's clothes and body and redress her.

Friday, June 10, 2016

Samantha White, a neighbor of the Collbran property to where Flores had driven, testified she saw Flores vehicle from her deck and began observing his activity because she knew his parents had reported him missing. She said she saw an arm fall out of a blanket bundled around Doolittle as Flores carried her from his grandfather's house back into his truck.

Within minutes, law enforcement agents had arrived to White's residence and also began surveilling Flores and the property. DNA taken from blood stains on a wash cloth found near his deceased great-grandfather's property as well as from blood spatter inside his truck matched Doolittle's DNA, testimony indicated.

Flores was apprehended by a SWAT team that day, and has remained in police custody since.

Jasinski has argued that his client's failure to more intelligently conceal evidence of the murder shows his lack of deliberation in the homicide.

"This was the hasty impulsive act of a confused, heartbroken young man," Jasinski said in his closing argument.

Riedel disagreed.

"I don't have to prove he was a smart murderer," Riedel said in his rebuttal against Jasinski. "The only thing that wasn't deliberate was that he didn't shoot himself after shooting her. He lost his nerve. He wanted to be with Ashley forever."

First-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison. Second-degree murder carries a prison sentence of up to 48 years.

"On June 9, 2016, Ashley Doolittle had everything to live for," Riedel told the jury. "She had done nothing she deserved to die for."

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